1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Brown gas mass production apparatus including a line style electrolytic cell. This is an essential component to use Brown gas as fuels in industrial boilers, furnaces, and so on, and more particularly, to a Brown gas mass production apparatus including a line style electrolytic cell in which insulation bars are interposed between (−) and (+) electrode plates in order to enhance the total electrolysis efficiency. The (−) and (+) electrode plates are crosswisely aligned to face each other in their half area, respectively, while also being lengthwisely alternately arranged to be overlappingly disposed to each other. They are then attached to a predetermined frame, constructed of left and right plates which are made of an insulation material, by securely fitting upper and lower fixing bars into generally square grooves of the left and right plates, such that the electrode plates can be formed integrally with the frame.
The line style electrolytic cell, according to the present invention, is characterized in that the electrolytic cell case that is coated with an insulation material includes two or three groups of the electrode units therein for directly carrying out the separation of gas and water on the top surfaces of the units of the electrode plates to desirably maintain an electrolyte at a predetermined level.
A Brown gas mass production apparatus, including a line style electrolytic cell, is also provided with a pressure automatic feed water device for maintaining the electrolyte at a predetermined level and with a forced electrolyte cooling and circulating device for maintaining the electrolyte at a constant temperature, thereby enabling Brown gas to be generated in large quantities.
2. Background of the Related Art
Electrochemistry which has its origin in an electrolysis technology started about 200 years ago. Since the basic laws of the electrochemistry and various terms and concepts related to the electrochemistry such as ions, cations, electrolyte or the like were established by Faraday in 1833, there has been no further development on the electrolysis technology.
After that, Dr. Yull Brown in Australia launched a research on the electrolysis of water in 1971. As a result, he invented a Brown gas generator, which is granted with U.S. Pat. No. 4,081,656 1978, and thus established theories regarding implosion properties and thermonuclear reaction characteristics of Brown gas.
However, the method of electrolyzing water has failed to be put to practical use because it is predominantly recognized as being not economical, such that it has been applied only for laboratory work like soldering or welding.
The present inventor met Dr. Brown, who lives on the outskirts of Sidney in Australia, in 1991 and after that, the inventor started to develop a Brown gas application technology, which becomes a fundamental study for treating water as fuel.
For the purpose of commercializing water as fuel, first of all, there is a need for improving the performance of a Brown gas generator as well as enlarging the capacity of the same. As a result, he had invented a Brown gas generator including a line style electrolytic cell, which was granted Korean Patent No. 275504 and Japanese Patent No. 3130014. This is presently being used in a Brown gas boiler, a Brown gas heater, a Brown gas-heating furnace, and especially a Brown gas combustion accelerating system such as a commercial gas-heating system into which a great amount of Brown gas is injected.
According to the Faraday's laws as mentioned above, when electric current passes through the interior of the electrolytic cell, the mass of chemical materials precipitated from electrodes is proportional to the quantity of the electric current passing through the interior of the cell. The mass of a material generated in a predetermined quantity by the electric current is proportional to the chemical equivalent of the material.
Like this, theoretically, the quantity of Brown gas generated at the time when the predetermined amount of the electric current is passed in the process of the water electrolysis, is proportional to the amount of electric current supplied. But experimentally, the gas generation efficiency of the Brown gas generator is substantially lowered to some extent according to the construction of the electrolytic cell and manner of configuring the gas generator. In the case of producing the Brown gas in large quantities, this is clearly proved, and therefore, it can be appreciated that we cannot expect to obtain a sufficient efficiency with conventional gas generators.
In other words, the efficiency of the electrolysis can be improved by various experiments and tests, but not by just theories.
A conventional electrolytic cell, including the electrolytic cell of Dr. Brown, has adopted several methods such as a method of simply arranging (+) and (−) electrode plates with them facing each other in multiple layers, which is only applied to a certain type of gas generator generating a relatively small quantity of gas, a method of disposing a plurality of electrolytic cells and connecting them to each other so as to generate a relatively large quantity of gas, a method of deeply submerging an electrode unit in electrolyte which is contained in the interior of the electrolytic cell, and a method of having an additional gas and water separating tank for gathering the gas built in a Brown gas generator.
In the case of such methods, while minutely observing the interior of the above-mentioned electrolytic cell through a transparent window, it can be found that gas bubbles developed when gas starts to be generated from a space where no electrolyte is contained between the respective electrode plates and on the top surface of the electrode unit. Thus, the large bubbles climb to the gas and water separating tank and are separated from water on the top surface of the electrolyte, so that the gas gathers there.
This method hinders the movement of bubbles because of a long distance between the electrode unit and the surface of the water from which gas is separated and water pressure, so that the time during which the bubbles are attached on the electrode plates is lengthened. This temporarily makes the occurrence of the electrolysis impossible at the predetermined portions on which the bubbles are attached. This causes efficiency of the gas generation to be substantially reduced.
An explanation on the schematic configuration of the above-mentioned “A Brown gas generator including a line style electrolytic cell” disclosed in the Korean Patent No. 275504, which has been previously registered by the present inventor and the Japanese Patent No. 3130014(hereinafter, referred to as “cited references”) will be given hereinafter.
In the configuration, the Brown gas generating device according to the cited references includes: an electrolytic device in which an electrode unit is constructed in such a manner that lower fixing bars are fixedly inserted into a plurality of indented grooves formed at predetermined intervals on a pair of bases. A plurality of generally rectangular electrode plates are inserted into insertion grooves formed on the top surface of the lower fixing bars, in a horizontal direction, and the electrode plates are inserted into insertion grooves formed on the bottom surface of the upper fixing bars. Then, stay bolts are engageably coupled to bolt holes formed on both sides of the bases and the fixing bars so as to form the lower and upper fixing bars and the electrode plates as an integrated single piece. Then an electrolyte cooling device in which a gas ascending pipe and an electrolyte descending pipe are curved in zigzag shapes in a predetermined length so as to be fixedly coupled on their both sides by means of a pin tube and in the middle of the interior side thereof is mounted a cooling fan; a gas gathering tank, having a narrower width on the upper portion thereof and a wider width on the lower portion thereof, and having a level sensor installed therein. The gas ascending pipe connected to the electrolytic device is installed on the lower portion of one side thereof, an exhausting pipe is installed on the upper portion thereof, and the electrolyte descending pipe connected to a certain portion of a feed water pipe is installed on the lower portion of the other side thereof. A feed water tank being narrow on left side thereof and being wide on right side thereof and connected to the exhausting pipe, in which an exhausting pipe and the discharging pipe are fixed to the upper portion thereof and the feed water pipe is mounted on the lower portion thereof, the feed water pipe being coupled to a lower electrolyte tank.
As can be seen from the conventional electrode unit disclosed in cited references, the electrode unit does not have any insulation bar interposed between the electrode plates and is also configured to fix the upper and lower fixing bars only by using stay bolts, without any side plates, which makes the sides thereof completely opened so that an insulation is not accomplished. This results in the loss of an electric current, and thus, an electrolysis efficiency is considerably reduced.
More particularly, the electrode unit is installed deeply into the electrolytic device and since the surface of electrolyte exists in the gas gathering tank, the bubbles of the Brown gas generated between the electrode plates ascend the gas ascending pipe and enter into the gas gathering tank to be separated into gas and water. However, this process is complicated and, since a predetermined water pressure exists in the electrode unit, the staying time of the bubbles generated between the electrode plates becomes longer, thereby greatly reducing electrolysis efficiency.